432 San Andres Street,
Malate, Manila
+63 (02)524-7671 to 80
14 November 2010
It was our last night in Manila, so I asked K if we could eat at the Aristocrat Restaurant because I know it has been in the food business for so long, yet I still haven't tasted their food. With a rich history this restaurant has, K didn't see the reason why we wouldn't eat there, after all, it was just a few steps away from Sohotel Malate, where we stayed at.
It was dinnertime when we got in (around 7:30pm), and even if the place was big, it was still packed with diners. This is one of the things I love about "old-fashioned" Filipino restaurants - seeing families gather together to share and enjoy different sumptuous dishes!
They do have a lot of dishes to offer, but just like most Filipino-themed restaurants, most of their dishes were for sharing. There weren't much dishes for one person, so I let K decide which he wanted, before I make my choice.
Crab Foo Yeung. K chose this because of the crab meat. It's good enough to share, but I am not really into crabs, so I only gave it a taste. It's a bit sweet (just a little, though), but I love that this dish had real crab meat (not those crab sticks). K never had the need for bread for this one - he said this was enough for him. He found it really good, but because the serving was so big, he was only able to eat half of it.
Aristocrat Chicken Barbecue. This has been my third chicken meal for this holiday, and at this time I already realized that I have been eating chicken whenever we dine out. However, I just couldn't resist this because when I asked the wait staff what he can recommend me, he suggested this dish because it's one of their best sellers. Since this was the few dishes good for one person, I just went with it. Well, it tasted like any other chicken barbecue, but I did love how it tasted, especially after squeezing the sachet of Java Sauce on it.
Buco Pandan. At first I wanted to try any of Aristocrat's cakes, but I felt a little sad that the bakeshop had a different management and if I wanted to eat the cake, I should go to the bakeshop and take out a slice of cake that I wanted. I didn't want to go through that, so I decided to just go for their Buco Pandan. It may look simple, but this dessert was divine! Tasting it, it quickly became part of my top 10 desserts.
Aristocrat Iced Tea. Seeing the restaurant's name next to the iced tea, I knew this would be special. On the menu, they did printed a logo of Steuarts Tea - Finest Quality Pure Ceylon Tea, so I guess that's the brand of tea they used for this. It surely tasted different from the Iced Tea I have tasted - super delicious, but I felt a little sad that there were a lot of foam. :)
I may not be able to have my slice of cake, but dining here has been really special. It was nice to be a part of Aristocrat's very rich history, even if contribution was to dine there.
It rained just as soon as we stepped out of the restaurant, so we quickly went back to the hotel. We still needed to arrange our stuff because we traveled to Baguio City the next morning.
I come from a family who loves cooking and eating. I never had any formal training in cooking and that I taught myself how to cook based on the handed down recipes, but I could say that I can cook good food. In 2008, I started documenting my food trips for my